No creature was moving in the valley he had just ascended; but the sun was beginning to slope towards the west, and he must onwards.
Onwards, across the slippery snow.

At first a few tree-stems, blighted and withered, were visible right and left, proving that at some time during their existence, these bald downs had either a less elevation or a warmer climate than now.

Then these even disappeared, and all around was one white blinding glare.

To the right, the snow-fields rolled up into the shapeless lofty mass called Mount Tambo, behind which the hill they now call Kosciusko,--as some say, the highest ground in the country,--began to take a crimson tint from the declining sun.

Far to the south, black and gaunt among the whitened hills, towered the rounded hump of Buffaloe, while the peaks of Buller and Aberdeen showed like dim blue clouds on the furthest horizon.
Snow, and nothing but snow.